Sebastian Muenster

 

Sebastian Muenster was born in 1488 at Ingelheim, (Germany) and died in 1552 in Basel, (Switzerland).

Muenster was the true renaissance man: historian, mathematician, geographer, and linguist. For a time he was a Franciscan Monk. After the reformation, he converted to Protestantism. He taught Hebrew at the University of Heidelberg before settling in Basel in 1529.

 

As a cartographer, he is perhaps best known for his book the Cosmographia published in 1544 which aimed to give a comprehensive picture of the known world in the 16th Century.

 

Muenster's other works include an illustrated Latin edition of Ptolemy's Geographia with illustrations, a triligual dictionary in Greek, Latin and Hebrew and the Mappa Europae or map of Europe (1536).

 

A portrait of Sebastian Muenster appeared on the old German DM notes that were published before the 1990s.